Artist Bios:
ANDREW CRUST is the newly-appointed Assistant Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (beginning in 19/20) where he will conduct a large number of subscription concerts, Kids concerts, Pops, as well as the innovative Annex Series and Tea and Trumpets Series each season. He is a versatile conductor with broad experience conducting orchestras, ballet and opera across North and South America and Europe.
Crust was Assistant Conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra from 2017-2019 where he conducted over thirty-five concerts each season. He also served as Conductor of the Memphis Youth Symphony Program. As the Assistant Conductor of the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine from 2016-2018, he conducted a variety of concert series, helped coordinate the orchestra’s extensive educational programs, and helped lead a program for concertgoers under 40 called “Symphony and Spirits”.
Crust was the Assistant Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of the USA (NYO-USA) in the summers of 2017 and 2018, assisting Michael Tilson Thomas on an Asian tour, as well as Giancarlo Guerrero, Marin Alsop and James Ross at Carnegie Hall and in a side-by-side performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has also served as Cover Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony and Nashville Symphony, Assistant/Cover Conductor of the Boulder Philharmonic and Assistant Conductor of Opera McGill. As a winner of the 2018 Ansbacher Fellowship, selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic, Crust was invited to the Salzburger Festspiele throughout August 2018 with full access to all Festival performances and rehearsals. Furthermore, Crust was the only American invited as a semi-finalist for the 2018 Nestlé and Salzburg Festival‘s Young Conductors Award, and worked with the Austrian Ensemble for New Music in May of 2018.
Praised for her “fervent, commanding vocal prowess,” French-American mezzo-soprano STEPHANIE DOCHE (rhymes with posh) was a Handorf Company Artist with Opera Memphis for the 2018-2019 season. While in Memphis she sang the roles of Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, Cousin Hebe in H.M.S. Pinafore, and Toledo in the professional premiere of new American opera, The Falling & the Rising. Stephanie is also an Encouragement Award recipient for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, West Tennessee district.
In 2018, Stephanie garnered recognition for her “boldly convincing” performance as Idamante in Idomeneo with Opera NEO in San Diego. Other operatic highlights include Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Mére Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites, Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, and La Suora Zelatrice in Suor Angelica. Stephanie performed as Meg March in Little Women with UT Austin Butler Opera Center under the guidance and praise of the opera’s composer, Mark Adamo.
Impassioned with a desire to connect through creativity, Stephanie loves introducing opera to new audiences. As a Handorf Company Artist, Stephanie was a core member of 30 Days of Opera, an annual event that presents free opera in Memphis and its surrounding areas every day in September. Also in 2018, Stephanie performed in the premiere of the new children’s opera, Jack and Jill and the Happening Hill, with Salt Marsh Opera. During this community outreach, Stephanie and company presented the opera to over 5,000 students in Eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Stephanie has been a featured soloist with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, University of Texas Wind Symphony, Rocky Ridge Music Center, and the Austin based chamber ensemble, prismatx, with whom she performed Schoenberg’s ‘Pierrot Lunaire.’
Stephanie was born in France to an American mother and Canadian father. When she was four years old, Stephanie and her family moved to Rochester, New York, where she was raised.
